Farm murders report to Selebi

2003-07-31 18:24

Pretoria - The long-awaited report on a probe into the motives for incidents in which the occupants of farms were murdered, assaulted and robbed was handed to National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi on Thursday.

His office said Selebi received the document in Pretoria on behalf of Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula.

"The report is a lengthy document and will have to be studied before comment on the contents can be given, Selebi's office said in a statement.

Chair of the committee of inquiry, Charl du Plessis, earlier said the report ran into hundreds of pages.

The ministry of safety and security commissioned the investigation about two years ago.

Du Plessis described the report as thorough, saying it would be useful for long-term planning and policy decisions by the minister.

He expressed confidence that the document would not be watered down.

Much bigger task

The analyses and statistics it contained was such that it was not possible to cut out some sections of the report without being obvious, du Plessis said.

The investigation dealt with statistics going back to the early 1990s.

Asked about the delay in finalising the document, du Plessis said the task proved to be much bigger than originally anticipated."

AgriSA spokesperson Kobus Visser welcomed the completion of the report, which he said resulted from the union's insistence that such incidents be properly probed.

"We trust that the contents of the document would be made public as soon as possible."

AgriSA's records showed the number of violent incidents on farms had been rising by an annual 10% since 1997, with the number of killings averaging 145 a year, Visser said.

- SAPA